St.

Jude College - Dasmarias

URC Ave., Salawag, Salitran IV, Dasmarias City, Cavite

Philosophical Analysis
(Broadsheet)

Submitted By: Austin Nicole V. Nilo

Submitted To: Sir Leo Marko Azucenas

August 16, 2013

Name of Broadsheet: Philippine Daily Inquirer

Date: July 26, 2013

Columnist: Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc

Structural Analysis:

Exclusionist

What was KLM thinking? The Dutch airline came under fire recently for having barred an 18-year-old indigenous Filipino woman from flying to Rio de Janeiro for the flimsiest but most outrageous of reasons: She was tagged as not ready to travel despite the full documentation she presented to airline personnel.

Arjean Marie Belco of Bukidnons Talaandig tribe, whose trip was sponsored by the nonprofit group GoodX.org and its partner Cartwheel Foundation.org., was at the Kuala Lumpur airport on July 20, en route to Brazil to take part in the World Youth Day celebrations, when a KLM employee identified as a Mr. Shawa stopped her at the check-in counter. The man was doubtful about the validity of Belcos tripand would not let her on the flight even after he was shown valid travel and supplementary documents.

According to the complaint posted by Belco and her sponsors on Facebook, Shawa also let loose with disparaging comments and questionsabout why her ticket was too cheap and was just purchased yesterday, why her passport looked new, and how much money she had, among other things. Belco was able to present bank documentation that she had sufficient travel funds; she also requested the airline to call her sponsors to confirm the trip. But she was still barred from flying.

GoodX.org said it had contacted KLM before Belcos ticket was bought, to confirm her flight details. So what would account for the airlines action? GoodX.org thinks it was because a high-handed KLM employee profiled Belco and decided she didnt fit his idea of a typical international traveler. Arjean was denied her right to travel. This could also be perceived as a possible case of discrimination based on appearance, gender, ethnicity, nationality, age or social status, GoodX.org said in its FB post.

Belco, a BS Education student who was on her very first trip outside of the Philippines, was eventually allowed to fly and is now in Rio. In a subsequent

statement, KLM said it had gotten in touch with GoodX.org and had made all arrangements needed to bring this to a good end. It also said it values all of its passengers, does not distinguish between age, gender, race, religion or lifestyle, and accepts passengers in possession of valid travel documents.

But there was no explanation whatsoever for its exclusionist behavior toward the young woman, who was not only carrying valid travel papers but was also fully backed by her sponsors. Worse, there was no hint of remorse in KLMs statement, or a smidgen of acknowledgment that it had made a regrettable mistake.

The absence of apology is appalling. This airlines display of disregard for the rights of customers deserves the strongest rebuke. Travellers are also hereby forewarned.

All-embracing

Belcos flight to Rio de Janeiro was delayed by two days. But mercifully she made it in time as the World Youth Day festivities went into high gear with the arrival of Pope Francis, who has been electrifying the world with the radical brand of simplicity and humility that he immediately put into practice in the staid and snooty Vatican.

The former Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio has brought to Brazil his back to basics spirit. His packed schedule includes not only high Masses for fervent Catholics in grandiose basilicas and appearances before tens of thousands of young faithful from the world over, but also a visit to a hospital to comfort drug addictsa gesture reminiscent of the many acts of simple kindness he has displayed in the gilded capital of Catholicism, such as washing the feet of juvenile inmates on Holy Thursday, visiting poor migrants outside Rome, and getting off his popemobile to embrace disabled children.

Francis has also called on priests to live simpler lifestyles, declared in one homily that Christs redemption covered even the atheists, and greeted Muslims during Ramadan. For all these, conservative Catholics have not been really happy, reports the National Catholic Reporter. Thats the surest sign there is that this Popes campaign to return the 1.2 billion-strong Catholic congregation to the kinder, gentler fundamentals of its faithto become a compassionate, allembracing Churchis working.

Name of Broadsheet: Philippine Daily Inquirer

Date: July 24, 2013

Columnist: Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc

Structural Analysis:

Wash it out

With unusual speed, the Philippine National Police has concluded that the deaths of the Ozamiz Gang leader and his henchman last week were probably the result of a rubout. PNP Director General Alan Purisima said administrative charges have been filed against 14 policemen implicated in the extrajudicial killings, including a superintendent.

I have already approved the precharge evaluation of those involved in the [Ricky] Cadavero and [Wilfredo] Panogalinga case because it appears in the investigation that there have been violations committed, Purisima told reporters on Tuesdayor less than 24 hours after President Aquino highlighted the case in his fourth State of the Nation Address.

The President had devoted a paragraph to incidents that continue to stain the honor of our police force. (The official English translation of the Sona offers a somewhat more literary version of the ritual speech. The paragraph in question begins with: There are still incidents that sully our police forces honor. In the rest of the quote, below, we follow a more colloquial reading.)

We must all have heard about what happened to the members of the Ozamiz Gang, Ricky Cadavero and Wilfredo Panogalinga: They were arrested, but ended up dead. Like the investigation we conducted into what happened in Atimonan, we will make sure that those policemen or whoever were involved here will be made to answerno matter how high their ranks are. Whoever are the masterminds here: Get ready. I am close to finding out who all of you are.

The Presidents language suggests that he had been recently briefed by Purisima or Interior Secretary Mar Roxas about the status of the internal investigation that the PNP conducted (which is separate from the inquiry launched by the National Bureau of Investigation, on orders of Justice Secretary Leila de Lima). It also suggests that he now considers the official response to the Jan. 6 incident in Atimonan, Quezonthe deliberate ambush at an improvised

checkpoint of alleged leaders and protectors of an illegal gambling syndicate, resulting in 13 deathsa benchmark to measure future inquiries by.

From the start, the Ozamiz Gang escape-try story raised suspicions. Only a few hours after being presented by both Roxas and Purisima at a Camp Crame news conference on July 15, Cadavero and Panogalinga were killed in San Pedro, Laguna. The police escorts claimed that the two had tried to grab their firearms, after their convoy came under attack from unknown motorcycle-riding gunmen.

Even before a witness came out (and sources inside Camp Crame began talking), the details of the story already seemed hard to credit. Why were the two criminals brought out of Camp Crame after the news conference by the same police escorts, when they were brought there precisely to be turned over to the Bureau of Correction? Why were they brought all the way to Laguna, when protocol dictates that the inquest proceedings take place in the Muntinlupa penitentiary?

Those questions tell us why the PNP has filed administrative charges against those implicated in the incident. In Purisimas words, there have been violations committed. But if the witness who saw the police set up a barricade in San Pedrowhich later turned out to be the exact spot where Cadavero and Panogalinga were killedis telling the truth, then administrative charges are not enough. If the sources in Camp Crame who call for an investigation into the manner in which the van carrying the two criminals were hit by gunfire are telling the truth, that police firearms were used, then administrative charges cannot be enough.

The real question is: Why were the gang leader and his henchman, who had previously escaped but were recaptured only recently, killed after a high-profile news conference featuring no less than the chief of the PNP and his civilian boss?

The real sullying of the honor of our police force is done by those police officers who serve as protectors or partners of criminal syndicates. To wash out the Ozamiz Gang stain, multiple murder charges similar to those filed in the Atimonan 13 case must be brought against everyone involvedno matter how high their ranks are.

Name of Broadsheet: Philippine Daily Inquirer

Date: July 23, 2013

Columnist: Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc

Structural Analysis:

Rights victims in limbo

Last February, too much fanfare on the part of Congress and Malacaang, President Aquino signed into law a bill authorizing compensation of P10 billion (about $230 million) to victims of human-rights abuses by the Marcos dictatorship. For the claimants, it was a case of better late than neverthe fruit of 26 years of unrelenting, often lonely, struggle not only to get the Philippine government to recognize their status as primary victims of state-sponsored violence under martial law, but also, and more importantly, to redress that injustice by way of an official government act that finally enforces some measure of restitution and punishment against the Marcoses.

Nearly six months later, not one of the claimants has received his or her share of that compensation, because Malacaang has yet to appoint the members of the board that would administer the fund. Yet again, the rights victims are being made to waittheir claims stuck in bureaucratic limbo even as their ranks continue to dwindle due to old age and the ravages of the violence they endured long ago.

And now, the government seems to want to add cruelty to its neglect of the rights victims: The Presidential Commission on Good Government is opposing the $10-million settlement that the victims lawyers have reportedly forged with the unnamed buyer of a valuable Claude Monet painting believed to be part of the ill-gotten wealth of Imelda Marcos, former first lady and now Ilocos Norte representative.

The well-known artwork by the French Impressionist painter, titled Le Bassin aux Nympheas (Water Lily Pond, 1899), was sold to the buyer in 2010 by Vilma Bautista, Imelda Marcos former social secretary and confidante, for $32 million. The New York-based Bautista was arrested in 2012 for attempting to sell three more Impressionist artworks from the Marcos hoard. The buyer of the Monet, who was said to have bought the painting in good faith, didnt want to be dragged into the highly publicized case of Bautistawhose trial for art theft and

tax fraud is set to start on Oct. 7 in New Yorkand thus agreed to enter into a settlement with the rights victims over the paintings ownership for $10 million.

The settlement is the handiwork of Robert Swift, the same US-based lawyer who won a $2-billion award in a class action suit against the Marcos estate in 1995 on behalf of 9,539 victims of martial-law abuses. If the agreement with the Monet buyer is successfully implemented, the remaining claimants, now down to 7,500, may get another $1,000 in compensation on top of the P43,000 (the equivalent of $1,000) each of them received in 2011 under a $10-million initial settlement of the $2-billion judgment.

Two thousand dollars, or about P86,000. Is that sufficient to compensate for the rape, torture, mutilation and other horrific barbarities inflicted on thousands of men and women, among them the flower of the countrys youth, by agents and soldiers of the Marcos dictatorship? Is that recompense enough for families wracked by anguish over a parent, spouse, or child gone missing or driven into hiding in the face of government harassment, oreveryones nightmare in that benighted eraa loved ones mangled body?

When President Aquino signed the Human Rights Victims Reparation and Recognition Act of 2013 during the Edsa rites last February, it was hailed as a landmark measure that recognized the heroism of those who fought and suffered under martial law. But it is a recognition that the government has been unable to deliver so far. One would think, then, that it would welcome the justness of another arrangementsuch as the $10-million Monet settlement that could take up the slack and begin compensating the victims.

But the PCGG stands in the way, insisting that the government, not the rights victims, owns the Monet painting, and thus they have no right to its proceedsa perfectly valid legal argument, and also a callous, insensitive one. This saga of injustice has lasted nearly three decades. Whatever funds are extracted from the Marcos loot and in whatever waywhether by formal budget allocation or through the disposal of the ill-gotten hoardthese victims deserve to finally get their due.

Until they are afforded such closure, their ordeal continuesand this countrys as well, with its collective inability, or plain unwillingness, to come to terms with its dark past.

Name of Broadsheet: Philippine Daily Inquirer

Date: July 22, 2013

Columnist: Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc

Structural Analysis:

Affordable Air travel

It used to be that air travel was the domain of the rich. The emergence of socalled low-cost carriers (LCCs) changed the game by opening air travel to the burgeoning middle class. However, having LCCs is just half of the picture. These budget airlines must have their own airport terminals to keep their costs low.

The government announcement last week of a plan to build a P4-billion facility beside the Ninoy Aquino International Airport Terminal 3 to service the requirements of LCCs is welcome news. The Department of Transportation and Communications is doing a feasibility study on a new terminal that can handle 10 million passengers a year. The study may be completed before this year ends and, if proven viable, construction can start next year. The new facility should take two years to complete and will hopefully be ready before the end of President Aquinos term in 2016. A 3.3-hectare lot beside the controversial Naia 3 is being considered for the budget terminal. The government, according to Jose Angel Honrado, general manager of the Manila International Airport Authority, also hopes to bring Naia 3 to full operational capacity by the first quarter of 2014, and the idea is to transfer all domestic budget flights to the new terminal so that Naia 3 can focus on international flights.

The government is also revising the master plan for the Clark international airport to now include facilities for LCCs. If plans push through, a P6-billion budget terminal will be built starting next year for completion also in 2016. It is estimated that LCC traffic accounts for 80 percent of all aircraft movements in the Clark airport, thus the need to build a budget terminal. The DOTC has allotted P3 billion in its 2014 budget for the construction of the 45,000-square-meter budget terminal, and another P3 billion will be released in 2015 to complete it. The budget terminal will have a capacity of 4.5 million passengers a year. The DOTC had said that the new budget terminal would be an entirely different structure to look more like the Changi Airport in Singapore but linked to the existing terminal that has a capacity of two million passengers a year.

An LCC terminal is specifically designed with the needs of low-cost airlines in mind. It has simple facilities to keep construction cost low and maintenance expenses at the minimum. The concept of an exclusive LCC terminal is believed to have been pioneered by Malaysian tycoon Tony Fernandes of leading budget airline AirAsia at the Kuala Lumpur International Airport in 2006. The Malaysian airport and another in Singapore are the two often cited examples of LCC terminals in Asia-Pacific.

With a stripped-down and inexpensive terminal, an airport can cut operating costs significantly, passing along the savings to budget airlines that, in turn, can extend these to passengers in the form of cheap ticket prices. Cost reductions compared to normal airports are usually in the physical building, forgoing expensive architectural design in favor of simple warehouse-like structures with low ceilings and without the moving walkways, fewer restaurants and duty-free stores, and simplified baggage handling. However, these terminals may have modern facilities such as free Internet access. Studies on LCC terminals show that costs to an airline were as little as two-thirds of the total cost of landing at the main terminal, providing a big competitive advantage to budget airlines insofar as pricing their tickets is concerned.

Supporting LCCs will definitely help the governments big push for tourismone of the economic sectors that public and private experts believe can sustain the countrys high-growth momentum. With two budget terminals coming upone at the Naia and another in Clarklocal and foreign low-cost airlines can look forward to expanding their operations to and from the Philippines. The government should also consider an LCC terminal in the Visayas and another in Mindanao to make the benefits of cheap air travel available to all people across the country.

But the government must always keep in mind that low cost should not mean poor service at the airport for passengers lured by the cheap fares of budget airlines.

Name of Broadsheet: Philippine Daily Inquirer

Date: July 21, 2013

Columnist: Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc

Structural Analysis:

Times running out

As the newspaper goes to press, the draft of President Aquinos fourth State of the Nation Address remains a tightly guarded secret. We are, however, almost certain of one thing: Having reached the halfway point of his unexpected presidency, he will pause to mark the time, and perhaps make a joke about how he has to endure only three more years in Malacaang Palace before resuming normal life. But to those who voted for him because of his staunch anticorruption stance and his commitment to necessary governmental reforms, to those who have learned to support him because of his personal integrity and to those (such as credit rating agencies and foreign allies) who have seen important changes take place in the country since 2010, the fact that only three years remain in his term is no laughing matter. Because much, much more needs to be done. Halfway through his presidency, Mr. Aquino continues to enjoy enormous political capitalnot only the highest performance rating of any post-Edsa president at the midpoint, for example, but the only one above (indeed, well above) 50 percent. Even his most fanatical critics must concede that these levels of continuing popularity are remarkable, because in the last three years President Aquino has used his political capital repeatedly. The campaign to oust Merceditas Gutierrez as ombudsman, the impeachment of Chief Justice Renato Corona, the concerted effort to win the majority of Senate seats at stake in the midterm elections, the complicated task of extricating the country out of the unwelcome Sabah mess, not least the continuing confrontation with an expansionist China on legal and diplomatic fronts: Any of these could have cost the President substantial political goodwill. Vocal criticism notwithstanding, that hasnt happened. But we hope Mr. Aquino or his advisers are not lulled into thinking that because he remains personally popular, the public is not growing frustrated. As the turmoil sweeping through economically vibrant economies like Brazil and Turkey has shown, public impatience is the other side of high public expectations. And one mishandled issue can turn impatience into fury.

The daily reality in many parts of Mindanao, to give one example, is an unending nightmare of power outages. The daily reality for hundreds of thousands who use the light rail systems in Metro Manila, to offer a second, is a slow-motion nightmare of crowded stations and an absurd lack of trains. Three years into his term, there is no excuse for the administrations continuing failure to solve these and similar nightmares. And yet much more remains on the agenda. One of the landmark laws which will help define the Presidents legacy cannot yet be considered to have taken root. The battle to stop the Responsible Parenthood and Reproductive Health Law has shifted to the Supreme Court. We can all hope that the Court will recognize its limits and refrain from invalidating a much-debated policy. But a vigorous passage in defense of the new law in the Sonaa constitutionally mandated rite where the executive branch reports to the legislative, with members of the judicial branch in attendance would serve as a timely reminder of the immense amount of political compromise and legislative discourse that went into the making of the law. The continuing negotiations with the Moro Islamic Liberation Front have entered the final, but also most contentious, stages. But a comprehensive peace pact, difficult as it is to achieve, is only the beginning of another and potentially riskier stage: enacting a basic law or new organic act for the Bangsamoro region. A word in the Sona would signal the Presidents continuing engagement with the peace process. The Presidents inability or unwillingness to make good on his campaign commitment to enact a Freedom of Information law in his first three years imperils the good governance platform he has himself tried to entrench. The time to push FOI is today, the first day of the first session of the 16th Congress; a paragraph in the Sona would spread the word to his reluctant allies. In truth, the President does not have enough time to make good on all of the publics expectations. All the brave and bold talk about new airports, for instance, will end up producing exactly one new international airport by 2016 in Bicol, not in or near Metro Manila.

We hope todays Sona will be impressed with a sense of urgency, a sense that time is running out.

Name of Broadsheet: Philippine Daily Inquirer

Date: July 20, 2013

Columnist: Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc

Structural Analysis:

Finis

Yesterday morning on TV, comics creator and filmmaker Carlo J. Caparas let out a mouthful against National Artist for Literature Virgilio Almario, who had led a group of petitioners in August 2009 in questioning at the Supreme Court the conferment of national-artist honors on Caparas and on three otherstheater stalwart Cecile Guidote-Alvarez, architect Francisco Maosa and fashion designer Jose Pitoy Moreno. The four names had not been among those shortlisted by the selection committee composed of members of the National Commission for Culture and the Arts and the Cultural Center of the Philippines. In the original shortlist were filmmakers Manuel Urbano, visual artist Federico Aguilar Alcuaz, novelist Lazaro Francisco, and composer Ramon Santos. But in what was, in effect, a dagdag bawas operation, Malacaang came out with a new list that dropped Santos, retained Urbano, Francisco and Alcuaz, and added Caparas, Guidote-Alvarez, Maosa and Moreno. Then President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyos personal choices for national artist were now the majority in the list, occasioning such a hue and cry from the artistic community that the Supreme Court ordered a stop to the proclamations. Three days ago, or some four years later, the Supreme Court wrote finis to the saga by voiding Arroyos proclamation of her four choices, declaring the act as having been issued with grave abuse of discretion because the manifest disregard of the rules, guidelines and processes of the NCCA and CCP was an arbitrary act that unduly favored Guidote-Alvarez, Caparas, Maosa and Moreno. Can anything be more crystal-clear? The Supreme Court, in other words, ruled that Arroyos action was to be set aside simply because it violated the selection process for national artists. The former presidents constitutional duty to faithfully execute the laws and observe the rules, guidelines and policies of the NCCA and CCP as to the selection of the nominees for the conferment of the Order of National Artists proscribed her from having a free and uninhibited hand in the conferment of the award, the high court said. No judgment was made on the artistic qualifications of the nominees, whether their body of workmuch less any popular or mainstream acclaim it

commandedentitled them to a slot in the shortlist. This was essentially the same ground invoked by Almario et al. in their petition, which argued that Arroyos decision to disregard the rules to favor her choices dilutes the process and, in a way, cheapens it, as National Artist for Film Eddie Romero put it then. The President only needs to respect the rules, National Artist for Literature Bienvenido Lumbera said. Its a point the Supreme Court agreed with. But there was Caparas on TV, fulminating that the controversy was primarily driven by envy of him. His words, verbatim: Alam mo, Almario, pambansang alagad ka ng sining, noong una kitang makita sa PUP, komo napakaraming estudyanteng nagpapapirma sa akin nasa isang tabi ka na walang lumalapit sa yo, kita ko na sa mukha mo ang inggit sa akin noong panahon na yun eh, na idinadaos mo ngayon Sinasabi ko nga sa kanya eh, komo ang kanyang kakayahan napakaliit, yung taong makita niyang may malaking kakayahan, may malaking nagagawa sa sambayanan, kinaiinggitan nila eh, kabilang siya. Is this plain cluelessness or still bitter denial that Arroyos action accorded him unfair advantage over others? Whatever, the sordid episode that had regrettably also dragged with it a worthy candidate such as Maosa is now a footnote. In the case of Alcuaz, Francisco and Urbano, whose proclamations were left unremarked on by the Supreme Court, their official status remains in limbo. Alcuaz died in 2011 without the state funeral and honors accorded national artists, given the pending case at that time. Their official proclamation at the soonest possible time should serve as a fitting closure to the controversy. It would also be the final rebuke to what Arroyo had tried to do, which was to extend the dirty hand of politics even into the arts to reward friends such as Caparas (and Guidote-Alvarez, who, while a recognized theater pioneer, was NCCA head at that timea clear case of conflict of interest) with a national honor that is reserved for Filipino artists chosen through a rigorous, aboveboard vetting process.

Name of Broadsheet: Philippine Daily Inquirer

Date: July 28, 2013

Columnist: Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc

Structural Analysis:

Abolish Customs?

The harsh words were President Benigno Aquino IIIs. Its like the Bureau of Customs is competing to be incompetent, he said in his fourth State of the Nation Address. Instead of collecting the right taxes and stopping contraband, it seems they [Customs personnel] are ceaselessly letting trade slip through, as well as illegal drugs, arms and other such into our territory. The question is: Is the President now open to the trial balloon Customs Commissioner Rozzano Rufino Biazon floated last April, that of abolishing the bureau in its entirety? Upon hearing the Presidents harsh language against corruption and incompetence in the Bureau of Immigration, the National Irrigation Administration and Customs, Biazon immediately offered to resignin a decidedly post 20th-century way, by sending President Aquino a text message. Aquino reaffirmed his confidence in Biazon, also via SMS. Emboldened by the Presidents new expression of support, Biazon late last week ordered all 17 Customs collectors to vacate their posts, to prepare the way for a revamp. Its logical that we start with the district collectors. Providing new leaders in the collection districts will at least give a fresh start on how to institute reforms down the line. We will focus next on the examiners, assistants as well as other personnel in the bureau, Biazon said. This is a major initiative; the Customs collectors represent the countrys 17 major ports of entry (among them, the Port of Manila, the Ninoy Aquino International Airport and the Manila International Container Terminal) and as such (together with the 37 subport collectors) may be the most important officials in the Bureau of Customs. Biazon acknowledged the popular perception: There are 17 collection districts, 17 kings and subkings. But he said he did not subscribe to that view: I dont acknowledge or recognize kings, theyre collectors under the authority of the commissioner. We will find out soon enough whether these are mere brave words, or whether Biazon has sufficient political will to remove underperforming or corrupt collectors. Under the law, his appointments are subject to the approval of the

finance secretary, but in reality, the choice of which collectors are removed or retained is Biazons. If all or most of the 17 are merely reassigned to other collection districts, then we can expect nothing much from this so-called revamp; it will be merely cosmetic. A good performance record is definitely a plus factor, Biazon said, identifying the criteria he will use to choose the new collectors. Well also check if they are [the] subject of complaints, their level of notoriety, among other things. Perhaps he should also check with the President. When Mr. Aquino assailed those officials in Customs for whom the only thing that matters is getting rich, surely he must have had some persons specifically in mind? But even assuming that every single corrupt or incompetent official in the bureau has been identified and replaced, there is no guarantee that the agency will work as designedbecause it remains subject to the very powerful forces that retired general Danilo Lim referenced when he tendered his resignation as a deputy Customs commissioner. These forces, Lim said, prevent genuine reforms from taking root in the agency. But the former coup plotter and elite soldier stopped short of naming names. Any consumer of the news can make a guess: Could these powerful forces consist of the Presidents own Liberal Party perhaps, or Vice President Jejomar Binays busy United Nationalist Alliance, or ex-Senate President Juan Ponce Enriles unrivalled political network, or the politically influential Iglesia ni Cristo, or powerful businessmen, or indeed all of the above? The ordinary citizen is reduced to guesswork, because no one, not even Lim, would say. Thats a shame. Lim can render real service to the country by talking straight and telling us exactly what he knows. Information about who pulls the strings in Customs is by itself a necessary reform. Necessary, but insufficient. Judging from President Aquinos own scathing remarks, the culture of the Customs agency is rotten to the core. A revamp or two, no matter how high up, will not be enough. Its time to reconsider the idea of abolition.

Name of Broadsheet: Philippine Daily Inquirer

Date: July 18, 2013

Columnist: Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc

Structural Analysis:

Open Scream

The P10-billion pork barrel scam, allegedly perpetrated by businesswoman Janet Lim-Napoles through her company JLN Corp., screams to be investigated. President Aquino has called for an exhaustive and impartial inquirybut who should do the investigating? Some details of the alleged abduction of Benhur Luy, once Napoles trusted lieutenant, remain murky. These need to be cleared. It was this incident which led to the open rupture between Napoles and her former employees, and which brought the National Bureau of Investigation into the case. Was Luy in fact held against his will? Or did the NBI harass Napoles and her brother? (That was Napoles assertion, in her April 17 letter of complaint to the President.) The second especially is a crucial question, but is it the NBI who should determine the answer? Despite the many safeguards already built into the pork barrel system, in its present guise as the Priority Development Assistance Fund, it remains highly vulnerable to legislative skullduggery. The entire JLN operation, according to the signed affidavits of the six employees-turned-whistle-blowers, was designed to take advantage of that vulnerability. Did the five senators and 23 congressmen implicated in the first wave of testimonies course pork barrel funds through fake organizations or fake projects? In whose pockets did the money end up? That is a pivotal question, the sort of thing that weve come to expect an inquiry by the Senate or the House of Representatives to ask, but is, say, the Senate blue ribbon committee the appropriate venue to determine the answer? It seems all but impossible for the JLN operation, as described in the affidavits, to succeed without the connivance of unscrupulous officials in the Department of Budget and Management. While the operation depended on the use of strategic forgeries and manufactured documents, the whistle-blowers also talk about working through trusted operatives in the department.

There is no showing that Budget Secretary Florencio Abad was even aware of the JLN scheme, but is he the right person to investigate the reported role of budget officials in the alleged pork barrel scam? A web of implicated agencies and officials: It seems like a formula for pessimism, but in fact it is the JLN business model as we understand it. The entire enterprise depends on the probability that individuals and institutions get caught all the time in an ever-thickening web of implication and compromise and consequence. What is to be done then? All the necessary investigations must be conducted. Under Justice Secretary Leila de Lima, the NBI has largely recovered its high reputation; it would be loath to squander all that with a reckless investigation. The chambers of Congress must conduct its own investigation; it is the responsibility of the incoming leadership in both the House and the Senate to redeem its public image, with a thoroughgoing inquiry in aid of legislation designed to install more safeguards into the pork barrel system. The budget department must launch its own investigation, to hold the officials and employees implicated in the whistle-blowers affidavits to accountand to offer them a chance to clear the air and defend their reputation. Above all, the appropriate charges must be company. The businesswoman was already investigation into the fertilizer fund scam, and organizations or ghost projects already disclosed, ever filed. filed against Napoles and implicated in the Senate the scheme involving ghost in 2007. But no charges were

That must change. Even if the web of implication which wheelers and dealers depend on extends all the way to the courts, the charges must still be filed. Aside from constant public pressure, the findings from the various inquiries can make the difference.

Name of Broadsheet: Philippine Daily Inquirer

Date: July 17, 2013

Columnist: Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc

Structural Analysis:

Rub it in

The circumstances behind the deaths of two criminal gang leaders in the hands of their police escorts, last Monday in Laguna, are an offensive clich: the supposed attempt to escape, the alleged reaching after the police escorts guns, the reported swift and deadly reaction of the policemen. To use the language of the street: Bumenta na yan! Really, it is a story that has been sold past its best-before date. Some law enforcers notorious for practicing the same kind of extrajudicial justice have gone on to serve in higher office, their exploits only the more popular of the many such stories about prisoners-killed-while-trying-to-escape-police-custody that attach to some law enforcers like an extra badge. When the news spread that Ozamiz gang leader Ricky Cadavero and his companion Wilfredo Panogalinga Jr. had been killed while being transferred under police escort, mere hours after the two ex-fugitives had been presented to the press in Camp Crame in Quezon City, Justice Secretary Leila de Lima was right to feel so alarmed. She said: I smell something fishy in the whole story because in the first place, why hold a press conference to show that they were turned over from the police to [the Bureau of Corrections]?when, that is, there was no such turnover. That must be the first question the investigators from both the Philippine National Police and the National Bureau of Investigation must ask: Why did the agencies involvedat this point it is not yet clear who did the organizing, whether it was the PNP or BuCorcall a news conference at the PNP headquarters? Acting BuCor chief Franklin Bucayu and Supt. Venancio Tesoro said they attended the news conference to receive custody of Cadavero and Panogalinga. But: General Estipona and Mendoza intervened and advised [us] that the fugitives be brought to their camp [in Dasmarias City] for the necessary [inquest] proceedings. In other words, Chief Supt. Benito Estipona, police chief of the Cavite-Laguna-Batangas-Rizal-Quezon region, and Supt. Danilo Mendoza, head of the Regional Special Operations Group, did not transfer custody of the two prisoners as the news conference had advertised.

What is unusual there is that the fugitive should have been physically turned over to us at Muntinlupa. Thats the practice, and that was why we never expected that they would call us for that purpose (to accompany the police escorts) because theyve been doing that since time immemorial, Tesoro added. Not only did Estipona and Mendoza fail to transfer the prisoners to BuCor, they also ordered the ex-fugitives and their police escorts to take a lengthier route. An angry De Lima questioned the decision for the police convoy to take the longer and therefore riskier route: [I]f youve come from Dasmarias, why go to San Pedro? The police can always go via the expressway but they went farther. It was in San Pedro, at around half past six in the evening, that motorcycle-riding gunmen allegedly ambushed the police convoy, leading to that overfamiliar scene: prisoners allegedly wrestling with police guards to get their firearms. Interior Secretary Mar Roxas immediately ordered the [National Police Commission] and the PNP to conduct a thorough investigation into this incident and submit a report in the soonest possible time. The PNP chief, Director General Alan Purisima, expressed deep regret: As the chief and father of the Philippine National Police, I am saddened by the incident, knowing how hard we worked to locate and recapture those fugitives. Sensible first reactions, but both Roxas and Purisima must do more and put official pressure on Estipona and Mendoza to explain themselves. Why did they fail to follow the usual protocol? Why did they tell the BuCor officials only at the last minute? Why did they allow the convoy to take the longer route? And, yes, what happened to those alleged motorcycle-riding gunmen? Unless Estipona and Mendoza can clear the air, the public will be justified in thinking, not only that Cadavero and Panogalinga were killed in a rubout, but also that they were killed because they implicated certain police officers. Theres no two ways about it.

Name of Broadsheet: Philippine Daily Inquirer

Date: July 16, 2013

Columnist: Letty Jimenez-Magsanoc

Structural Analysis:

Crunch Time

Its a breakthrough, indeedthe wealth-sharing agreement that the peace panels of the government and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front signed recently, hurdling the one big hindrance that had threatened to scuttle the talks just a few weeks ago. Earlier, the MILF had complained bitterly that the delay in the signing of the Annex on Revenue Generation and Wealth-Sharing was sowing frustration in its ranks and breeding doubts about the genuine sincerity of President Aquinos administration to arrive at a comprehensive peace agreement for Mindanao.

But those doubts appear to have been laid to rest with the successful consensus reached by the two panels on the wealth-sharing issues. From reports, it took a record six days and some 12 hours of gruelling negotiations before the two sides agreed on a mutually satisfactory formula: The MILF and the proposed Bangsamoro to be created under the peace agreement will get 75 percent of taxes and earnings from natural resources and metallic minerals coming from Mindanao, and 50 percent from energy and other mineral resources.

Earlier this month, chief government negotiator Miriam Coronel-Ferrer said that there would be more taxing powers and a more defined sharing of government resources on the whole, in keeping with the goal of having a strong and viable autonomous Bangsamoro governance. The wealth-sharing arrangement appears to fulfill this aim; for one, it is said to be better than the current setup enjoyed by the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao, which is funded only under a line item provision in the national budget, requiring it to submit annual budget requests to support its programs and functions. But under the wealth-sharing annex, the Bangsamoro entity will enjoy automatic appropriation, and will not have to haggle every time for its share of the national budget.

This sounds like a fair and just arrangement. All this time, Mindanao has suffered under the neglect and indifference of the central government in Manila, even as revenue from its natural resources invariably flowed into the national coffers. The ARMM, despite the billions of pesos poured into it, remains one of the

poorest regions, its infants at greater risk of death and disease than in other areas in the countrythe highest under-five mortality rate in the Philippines, in fact, according to government data. The poverty incidence is as high as 81 percent, with conflict and war further exacerbating the condition of residents in the area.

Wealth creation (or revenue creation and sourcing) is important for the operation of the Bangsamoro, considering that the Bangsamoro territory is among the most underdeveloped in the Philippines due to the decades-old conflict, the government panel said in a statement. The fiscal autonomy promised by the wealth-sharing agreement should, at last, help make the proposed Bangsamoro a viable, economically functioning entity, with the bulk of Mindanaos resources tapped and enjoyed by the people of Mindanao themselves. The resources under the disposal of the future Bangsamoro will give real meaning to its political autonomy, said MILF chief negotiator Mohagher Iqbal. Fiscal autonomy goes hand in hand with political autonomy.

With consensus on the wealth-sharing issue arrived at, along with the earlier annex on transitional arrangements and modalities that was initialed early this year, the government and the MILF can now move on to the two other remaining annexes of the preliminary peace agreement signed on Oct. 15, 2012: one on power-sharing, and the other on normalization, which requires the decommissioning of MILF forces and other armed groups and the establishment of police power in the Bangsamoro domain.

To put all these developments in perspective: No other previous peace talks by the government, whether with the MILF or the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed and political wings, the New Peoples Army and the National Democratic Front, respectively, has come this far in terms of common ground or workable detail. Suddenly, a genuine peace agreement seems more than a pipe dream. Despite the prickly issues that had threatened to derail the talks altogether, the fruitful ground covered so far by the two panels suggests that they are in a good position to achieve what has eluded this country for so long: a just, comprehensive and long-lasting peace accord for Mindanao.

Its crunch time for the government and the MILF. May mutual goodwill and sincerity see them through to the finish line.